strange_complex | Birthday picnic

I spent this afternoon celebrating my 35th birthday (which actually happens on Tuesday) with a lovely group of friends and colleagues on St. George's Field in Leeds. This is in fact a disused cemetery, though it looks for all the world now like a beautiful garden enclave, all manicured lawns and weeping willows - but with clusters of Victorian Gothic funerary monuments and a neo-Classical chapel for good measure:

Although it is right in the middle of the University campus, it is hemmed in by buildings and high stone walls, so that even a lot of people who live and work right by it have no idea it is there. So this idyllic enclave was all ours for the afternoon, with barely a distant passer-by in sight. Well, that is until it began to spit with rain - but even then it was hardly a problem, since we were so close to the current (temporary) home of the Classics department that we could just go and carry on drinking in an enormous unused student common room instead!

Very many thanks to all those who came bearing houmous, parma ham parcels and home-make cakes, and sweetly sang 'Happy birthday' to me, and discussed everything from Burke and Hare to Higher Education policy, including

glitzfrau,

ms_siobhan,

planet_andy and

kissmeforlonger - and of course many others WANOLJ. It was just the birthday picnic I'd envisioned - so thank you for coming along and making it possible. :-)

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